Impact on Seal Beach to be studied in 405 freeway widening

SEAL BEACH - Transit officials Monday vowed to revise the plans to widen the San Diego (405) Freeway, but city officials want more details on the new proposal.

The move to make "refinements" to the Orange County Transportation Authority and Caltrans' freeway plans is "in response to the public's feedback," according to OCTA spokesperson Christina Byrne.

The widening project will impact most coastal communities between Seal Beach and Costa Mesa.

However, according to Byrne, the revised plan could "potentially avoid ... the (freeway sound) wall relocation on Almond Avenue in the College Park East neighborhood of Seal Beach through design variations."

Since the OCTA disclosed its plans, many Seal Beach residents have aggressively opposed them, contending that the expansion options will do more harm than good.

The project would stop at the border of Los Angeles and Orange counties - with traffic on the expanded, improved freeway then squeezing into fewer lanes on the 405 and San Gabriel River (605) freeways.

The draft EIR examines three alternatives for the expansion.

Alternative 1 adds one lane to the 405 in each direction, from Euclid Street to the 605. This option would increase traffic flow to handle up to 7,200 vehicles per hour.

The second proposal adds two lanes in each direction, from Euclid to the 605, plus one more northbound lane from Brookhurst Street to the Garden Grove (22) Freeway. This option would increase traffic flow to 8,400 vehicles per hour.

The third proposal adds one lane, from Euclid to the 605, with one tolled express lane linked to an existing car-pool lane. This would include a possible discount or fee waiver for vehicles with three or more passengers, planners say.

In response to public feedback, transit planners on Monday added the following possible refinements to the project:

Truncating the express lanes under Alternative 3 north of Fairview Avenue in Costa Mesa to avoid reconstruction of the Fairview Bridge;

Reconfiguring the Magnolia Avenue and Warner Avenue interchange to avoid the need to acquire up to four businesses in Fountain Valley;

Reducing impacts to parking in Westminster by altering the project design.

OCTA will also review the existing data and perform additional traffic analysis in response to issues involving lane configurations at the Orange and Los Angeles county border, Byrne added.

OCTA planners are expected to select the preferred alternative on Sept. 24, according to the spokeswoman, adding that Caltrans planners will select the preferred alternative in the fall.

Seal Beach residents, especially those in the College Park East area, have been united in their opposition to the OCTA plans, according to Councilman Gary Miller.

On Monday, the councilman said he wanted more details about the revisions before commenting.

Under the original plans, Miller said there are concerns about whether the expansion will encroach on residential streets as a new soundwall is erected.

"We don't want the soundwall moved into College Park East," said Miller, who represents the area.

The 405 was built in the 1960s and is the most-traveled urban highway in the nation, with about 374,000 vehicles per day, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

OCTA planners predict traffic between Seal Beach and Costa Mesa will jump as much as 40 percent by 2040. If the 405 isn't expanded, that section of the freeway would max out at about 6,000 vehicles per hour.

Without an expansion, travel time between the Corona Del Mar (73) Freeway and the 605 will average 133 minutes in 2040, planners say. The first alternative would cut that to below an hour, while the other two options would cut travel time along the route to less than half an hour.